5 biggest problems in attack and how to solve them!

First, let me remind you of the survey we’re conducting to know what YOU really want from us. Please, let us know what kind of course (key topics or where you have troubles) you want us to create. As a thank you for participation, I’ll provide you with something really cool – you will get thesummary of top three RCA lessons of 2016forFREE!

Attack in chess is a fundamental topic, because without an attack we cannot win a single chess game. Perhaps strong players and titled players can attack easily as they know almost everything regarding attack, but if you are not this ‘strong player’ then you might have some problems.

King’s safety aspects

Chess is a game of understanding. Before doing anything we need to understand what is going on. There are some positions in which the opponent’s King is safe and in some other cases he is not. For instance, we should castle as soon as possible, am I right? If the King stays in the center, then we can use its position and we can start attacking him.

When should I attack?

In our previous survey one student asked a very important question: “I do not know when I can start the attack and what the most efficient way to do it is?” Indeed, firstly we need to understand that the opponent’s King is in a bad position.

Sometimes we can start the attack out of the opening. There are some techniques and aggressive openings, where you can start attacking straight away. Strong players know them and they can attack successfully. But, how can a not-so-strong player do it?

Suggested

Initiative

In order to attack we need to have a more active position. We should generate threats. In order to do so we need to activate our pieces, pieces that can create new threats.

Here I’d like to share a very important tip with you. Weak players try to improve any piece separately, but strong players know how tocoordinate all of their pieces. You need to connect and coordinate them in order to create even bigger threats.

Calculations

Here is another piece of advice in order to play good games – not only attacking games but in general: you need to know “how to calculate”. Actually this is also a student’s question. “How can I calculate accurately?”

Let me share with you a quick tip. In order to calculate properly you need to calculate theforcing movesfirst.

How to finish the attack?

Last but not least is how to finish off the attack. Sometimes we are so close but unfortunately our opponent can run away with his King or he can find an escape route.

I’ll not lie to you. In order to finish the attack and get the whole point (to win), you need to secure the mating net. We need to control the squares around the opponent’s King; this is what we call “the mating net”.

Finally, I’d like to know your thoughts about these five important aspects of attack in chess. What do you think about them? How should one make a successful attack? Or, do you face some problems when it comes to attack?